Beyond Blogs:
Succeeding in a Conversational Marketing World
Lois KellyBeeline Labs
Philadelphia American Marketing Association
October 15, 2008

The 2.0 avalanche: the stats tell the story
64% of consumers 78% consumer trust the 60% of Americans
reported wanting to see advice of other regularly interact with
user ratings & reviews. consumers. companies on a social
media site.
Forrester, 2008 Nielsen “Trust in Advertising Study” 2007
2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study
75% journalists get 73% online users have 43% of consumers say
story ideas from blogs. read a blog. companies should use
social networks to solve
Brodeur/Marketwire study, Jan. 2008
Universal McCann, Social Media Trends, April
consumers' problems.
2008
2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study
93% of Americans believe 57% of people online 36% think more
that a company should belong to a social positively about
have a presence on social network. companies that have
media sites.
blogs.
2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study Universal McCann, Social Media Trends, April Universal McCann, Social Media Trends, April
2008 2008

75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are
eager to get involved in social-networking
initiatives for marketing or customer
relations purposes, but 50 percent will fail.
Gartner Group

End goal is the same:
Getting & keeping customers

The world is a giant web of conversations.
Customers
with
customers Sales reps
People with
with
people online
customers
PR with the Conversations Employees
media with customers
Executives
People with
with opinion Your partners friends
leaders and vendors
with customers

With more channels than ever before
Conferences
Sales
Podcasts
meetings
Webinars Conversations Blogs
Social
You Tube
Online networks
communities

A DS
•
ES
AG
E SS KS
M EC
S
G D
IN ES
N
ET AL
RK • S
IO
A
M NT
AY TE
W N
T
E- CO
ON EB
SA
W
R
VE
N
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Trus
t
The
• Builds understanding
importance of • Emotional connections
conversations • Develops relationships
isn’t new…

5 things make it more important
1. Trust
2. Overwhelmed
3. Being heard, having a say
4. Emotional connections
5. Web 2.0: Digital Natives + Immigrants

The 5 biggest obstacles
1. Starting with technology
2. Company/product focus vs. customer focus
3. Tactics vs. strategic value
4. Command and control mindset (+ Legal!)
5. Nothing to talk about

Most social media has no purpose, plan, design

Sense Engage Activate Measure Stories
Creating a social media marketing strategy:
SEAMS

Actionable listening
Sense
What does it mean?
Actionable vs. “monitoring”
Cross functions

Pinpointing influencers, influences, topics, issues
Sense

Customer social media behavior
Sense • What is the social media
behavior, persona of your
customer segments?
• Who/what influences them?
How much of that influence is
from online sources?
• How
involved/interested/passionate
are they about the category,
company, decision?
• What issues do they care the
most about?

Sense
What truly makes us different is that we listen to
you, our users…Kayak employees (from our CEO
to accounting to our geeky engineers) personally
answer each and every email.
Anyone can listen, but we also react.

Learn how to respond, participate conversationally
Engage
Helpful, genuine, authentic, social

Engage

Operationalize:
Engage
who to respond to what/whom

Buying
Activate
Public Customer
relations service
Activate change:
Talent
recruitment Empower processes Leadership
communications
Employee
communications
Product
Training innovation

Activate
Customer
service

Activate
Public
relations

Activate
Training

Activate
Talent
Recruitment

Activate
Buying

Activate
Employee
communications

Activate
Product
Innovation

Measure Which measures make sense?
1. Beware the disconnects
Loyalty goal page view measures
Customer support engagement
2. Set measures at start
3. Synch with other business goals, measures

Benefit Metric Value
Traffic # page views, visitors Cost in similar ad
channel
Press mentions # stories in media, high profile bloggers Ad cost in publication
Search engine % of top search results driven by blog, SEO costs, paid search
positioning community keywords
Word of mouth # people commenting Cost of buzz agent,
share of conversation
Savings: consumer # times provide useful business insight Focus group, survey
insight cost
Increased sales # prospects, customers, sales who Decrease in sales cost;
efficiency read; content to be repurposed for lead content creation costs
gen
Influence/leadership # incoming links from prominent Decrease in paid
sources; # new relationships; analyst costs, less PR
syndication into corporate Intranets effort
Reduced training # of employees, customers who read Reduced training; prof’l
costs development costs
Stronger Negotiated co-sponsor agreements. Decrease in event,
partnerships marketing costs

Want more interest?
Be more interesting
Stories

Storytelling
“If you say undifferentiated
things
that are expected,
then you shouldn’t expect
anyone to care.”

Storytelling Find new story themes at least once a year
POINT OF VIEW Beliefs, opinions, ideas that provoke
conversation, build understanding; something
a person would actually say
VISION Why the organization exists, provides direction to what
company does
VALUE PROPOSITION Value customers get from doing business with company
MESSAGING Most important points to convey about company,
product, service
ELEVATOR SPEECH Simple sentence describing business, how it differs

Storytelling 9 views that get people talking
David vs. Avalanche
Aspirations
& Beliefs Goliath about to roll
Contrarian
Anxieties Personal
Counterintuitive stories
“How to” Glitz & Glam Seasonal,
Event related

Friendly vs. formal
Friendly dealer table earned 13% more revenue.
J.D. Power/American Casino study

To get more interest, be more interesting.

Marketing is
a conversation!

People want to get help and give help.

2008 AMA-Berry Book Prize Finalist
2008 Axiom/Inc Gold Medal Winner
Let’s keep talking:
www.beelinelabs.com www.foghound.com www.marketingtwo.net
Lkelly@beelinelabs.com